Month: November 2017

All these campaigns on Facebook kind of pass me ignoring it, because I find it toothless. Usually I find it irritating. I never really see any change after a campaign.
When the metoo campaign started I got surprised how big it turned out. I found it very good actually. I don’t believe there is a single woman I know that hasn’t been at least once put in an “awkward” situation by a man.
However, reading the paper about the poor prostitutes I got freaked out. I mean horrors these women experience, in “peaceful” SWEDEN are so bad I cannot even grasp the horrors a human mind can come up with. I hope for their sake that this metoo campaign will have an impact on their lives but as with many other things I think unfortunately that the poorest and the most vulnerable people in our pyramid of society will never reach out to get or have a voice…
Reading how it all started I got sad, angry and horrified….Here the story of the first “metoo” move.

The me too Movement™ started in the deepest, darkest place in my soul.

As a youth worker, dealing predominately with children of color, I had seen and heard my share of heartbreaking stories from broken homes to abusive or neglectful parents when I met Heaven. During an all girl bonding session at our youth camp, several of the girls in the room shared intimate stories about their lives. Some were the tales of normal teenage angst and others were quite painful. Just as I had done so many times before, I sat and listened to the stories, and comforted the girls as needed. When it was over the adults advised the young women to reach out to us in the event that they needed to talk some more or needed something else – and then we went our separate ways.

The next day Heaven, who had been in the previous night’s session, asked to speak to me privately. Heaven was a sweet-faced little girl who kind of clung to me throughout the camp. However, her hyperactive and often anger-filled behavior betrayed both her name and light, high-pitched voice and I was frequently pulling her out of some type of situation. As she attempted to talk to me that day though the look in her eyes sent me in the other direction. She had a deep sadness and a yearning for confession that I read immediately and wanted no part of. Finally, later in the day she caught up with me and almost begged me to listen…and I reluctantly conceded. For the next several minutes this child, Heaven, struggled to tell me about her “stepdaddy” or rather her mother’s boyfriend who was doing all sorts of monstrous things to her developing body…I was horrified by her words, the emotions welling inside of me ran the gamut, and I listened until I literally could not take it anymore…which turned out to be less than 5 minutes. Then, right in the middle of her sharing her pain with me, I cut her off and immediately directed her to another female counselor who could “help her better.”

I will never forget the look on her face.

I will never forget the look because I think about her all of the time. The shock of being rejected, the pain of opening a wound only to have it abruptly forced closed again – it was all on her face. And as much as I love children, as much as I cared about that child, I could not find the courage that she had found. I could not muster the energy to tell her that I understood, that I connected, that I could feel her pain. I couldn’t help her release her shame, or impress upon her that nothing that happened to her was her fault. I could not find the strength to say out loud the words that were ringing in my head over and over again as she tried to tell me what she had endured… I watched her walk away from me as she tried to recapture her secrets and tuck them back into their hiding place. I watched her put her mask back on and go back into the world like she was all alone and I couldn’t even bring myself to whisper…me too.

I found the book with the title “The monk who sold his Ferrari” that caught my eye because the title was a little bit unusual. It turns out that it is one of these positive motivational books that wants to inspire you to change your life in a positive way. I find much of the content is equivalent to the “eat that frog written by Brian Tracy, only it has more storytelling and more explanations.
One thing I remember was that when I was little I had something I called idea book but that was called a “dream book” in this book.
In this dream book one should write down the dreams you want and if more motivating make a collage of pictures of your dreams. For example if you want to travel to Bahamas then you put a picture of Bahamas.
It reminded me of the moments when I was a child and we were painting the house we wanted, or things we wanted. Funny that my house never was in a big city but rather in a rather green spot with flowers 🙂 Actually, it was a diamond house with a lot of garden around…
I like the idea of dream book and decided to dedicate a book for it…First thing I will do is to divided it in travels, spas and fun things I wanted to do that I have forgotten. Then there is a house , travels, bags and charity…and may your dreams come true 🙂
Knjiga “Kaludžer koji je prodao svog Ferarija” mi je uhvatila pogled jer mi je titula knjige
bila malo neobična. Ispostvilo se da je ovo jedna od onih pozitivno motivirajućih knjiga koje inspirišu da promijeniš način života na pozitivan način. Sadržaj je manje-više isti kao u knjizi «eat that frog» od brijana Tracy, samo što je ova knjiga više priča.
Jedna stvar koje se sjećam je kad sam bila dijete imala sam nešto poput knjigu mojih ideja. Ovdje oni to zovu “knjiga Snova“.
U toj knjizi sve svoje snove zapišeš i ako hoćeš da ti bude još više motivirajuće nacrtaš ili izrezeš slike iz novina i zalijepiš u knjizi. Naprimjer ako hoćeš na Bahame, staviš sliku od Bahama itd.
To me podsjetilo na momente kad sam bila dijete i kad sam crtala kuću koju hoću, ili stvari koje sam željela. Zanimljivo je da moja kuća nikad nije bila u gradu nekom nego je uvijek bila u zelenilu (vjerovatno selu) sa lijepim vrtom vani. Zaprave, moja kuća je bila od dijamanata i imala je lijep vrt sa puno cvijeća.
Sviđa mi se ideja sa knjigom Snova i izabrala sam jednu teku da bude moja buduća Knjiga Snova.
Prvo ću je podijeliti u putovanja, spa i smiješne stvari što hoću da uradim i doživim a koje sam zaboravila. A onda idu kuća, tašne i dobrotvorne svrhe…i…želim vam da se vaši snovi ostvare 🙂

Danas je Adrian prvi put uspio reci Duda.
Inace nije bas pričljiv.Čak neće ni mama da kaže, samo ako je mnogo mnogo gladan. Tu su tata i Ada puno popularniji. Kad počne pričati dadadada, nisam sigurna da li zove tatu što je dadada, ili Adu što je adadada.
Uglavnom, je neki dan uspio da stoji par sekundi bez pomoći. I tako gledajući njega nešto mi pade na pamet.
Gledam Adrijana i vidim kako djeca nemaju nikakva očekivanja kako šta treba biti. Kao što je jedan prijatelj ispričao kako su imali problem na poslu za kojeg su svi znali da je nerješiv i zato se niko nije ni potrudio da ga riješi…dok nije novi došao u firmi i neznajući da je problem nerješiv …..riješi ga.
Ja to gledam ovako… dijete kad treba naučiti hodati ono uporno satima i satima vježba puže, pada, plače i kad se malo isplače digne se kao da ništa nije bilo i uporno nastavi. Ponekad dođe mami i tati da dobije malo motivacije i sigurnost kad više nikako ne ide, ali vrlo brzo nastavi svojim upornim putem…
Roditelj milion puta kaže nemoj tu, pašćeš, udarićeš se , opržićeš se itd… da li ste IKAD vidjeli da malo dijete odraslu osobu posluša? I ne samo to zamislite se DA ga posluša…kad bi to dijete naučilo hodati? Sa 10 godina najvjerovatnije.
Da li ste ikad vidjeli onaj pravi istinski osmjeh djeteta koje je upravo skontalo da samo stoji? Ne može se platiti! Zato su djeca vjerovatno uvijek i vesela i to od srca vesela.
Zamisli da smo mi odrasli takvi?
Da kad hoćemo nešto da postignemo satima “pužemo, hiljadu puta padamo, plaćemo i na kraju i uspijemo?
Da ne slušamo ikoga, da ne tražimo podršku od ikoga i da “guramo” dok ne uspijemo.
Pitanje je zašto nisu odrasli takvi? Postanemo lijeni, demotivisani, bez elana… ali ZAŠTO?
Ko nas “napravi” lijenim?
Je li to škola? Tamo strpaju djecu za klupu i satima predaju nešto.
Da li su to roditelji? Komšije? Da li su to možda naši prijatelji?
Samim tim što se obično među onima što su otvorili firme kaže da je najgore slušati roditelje i prijatelje možemo shvatiti koliko je to ustvari bitno pitanje. A drugo bitno pitanje je kako to izbjeći?
Naravno sam(a) od sebe moraš početi …da li si ti ta osoba koja demotiviše ili motiviše svoju okolinu? I ako jesi kako i zašto si takva osoba…..Bilo bi to interesantno sa jednom pravom studijom taj fenomen istražiti…(možda i jeste, ali ne znam 🙂Today, Adrian managed to say “Duda” (pacifier) for the first time. He is not as talkative as Ada. He doesn’t even want to say mama unless he is very very hungry. (Dad and Ada are much more popular in that case. When he says “dadadada” I am never sure if he calls Ada, adadada, or dad (tata, pappa) “dadadada”…)
A couple of days ago he even managed to stand alone for a couple of seconds. Looking at him I got struck by a thought.
Watching him I noticed how children don’t have any expectations of how things should be. As a friend told a story about a problem at his work. They had a problem that everyone knew was insolvable. Then there came a new guy that didn’t know this so he solved the “unsolvable” problem.
I see it like following… when the child learns to walk it practice for hours and hours. They crawl, they fall , they whine, after whining a little bit they just continue like nothing has happened.
If necessary, when it feels this is it, the child comes to the mother or father gets a little bit comfort, maybe a little bit motivation and then it just continues to practice. The child just continues the hard ambitious way of practice.
Parents tell the children a million times don’t do this, you will hurt yourself, you’ll burn yourself, you will fall etc… BUT have you ever seen a child actually listen to the parent? If it would listen to us, the child would probably never learn to walk. Or it would be 10 years old.
Have you ever noticed a childs honest deep laught when it first realize that it actually stands by itself? It is priceless! Probably, they experience this for every developmental step they reach.
I guess, that is the reason why children always are happy.
Imagine that the grown ups where like this?
That when we really want to achieve something that we “ crawl, fall a thousand times, cry and in the end reach our goal…
Imagine that the grown ups didn’t listen to anyone, didn’t look for anyone to boost /support them and that we just continue the way we wanted until we reach our goal.
Would we be more happy?
I wonder why we give up our dreams? We become lazy, demotivated, deprived of energy…but why?
What / who makes us lazy?
Is it the school? We put the children there to sit for hours.
Is it the parents? The neighbours? Our friends?
It is funny that when starting a new business it is said don’t listen to friends and family. So these questions are quite important and intresting.
A second question would be how do we avoid it?
Of course, like a child, one has to start with yourself..are you the person motivating or demotivating your environment? Why are you such a person?…
It would be interesting to read a real study of this phenomena..
Over and good bye!

Me and Ensar discussed what instrument we would like Ada to play. I said of course violin. He prefers drums. But how will someone play the most beautiful song ever on drums? ? Maybe in combination with drums, but the violin beats the drums 😀
Here Summer part in Four seasons of Vivaldi played by David Garrett. Wonderful!

Some time ago I spent a beautiful October day with Ada and my friend Lejla, her daughter Lena and Lejlas sister Merima with her family. It was the golden October day it said at the radio. We went to the castle in Schwetzingen. I never heard of it before but it is worth visiting. Schwetzingen Palace was the summer residence of the Electors PalatineCharles III Philip and Charles IV Theodore (of the House of Wittelsbach).
The area around the castle is big and one can spend hours walking there. What surprised me the most though was the old mosque! It is not a place where I imagined a mosque. It is said that Charles III Philip and Charles Theodor where very open to other religions and by building the mosque they kind of paid respect to this religion.
As cynic as I am I am pretty sure that is just a made up story to make them “look nice”. Considering how kings where back then I tend to believe that they had at least one concubine or mistress that was a muslim and by building it they were being “nice”:)
In any case I find it to be a pretty building giving the whole area a little bit more fairy tale flair.